Cringe benefits

It’s so totally dreadful and utterly repulsive, that you can’t help watching it. Much-ridiculed, much-watched, cringe-pop is taking the internet by storm. And Dhinchak Pooja is its latest star.

Rebecca Black’s Friday song on YouTube in 2011 marked the emergence of cringe-pop. Closer home Taher Shah and Baba Sehgal’s videos gained much popularity because of their cringe factor. And the latest star on the cringe block is Dhinchak Pooja, whose music video, Selfie maine le li aaj has gone viral on YouTube. Actress Richa Chadha tweeted about the video, “IF THIS IS DELIBERATE, ITS GENIUS!”

It is yet to be determined if it is deliberate but Akhilesh Vats of Timeliners thinks it is. “Of course it is deliberate. I mean it is possible that when she initially made the video it was unintentional, but once she realised this content sells, she kept making more. She has understood her target audience. I think she is very smart and is using her knowledge very well.”

But he also believes that such content is killing the sense of humour among people. “We make some smart videos, with intelligent comedy and sarcasm and we expect it to go viral but it doesn’t. It is somehow very telling of the kind of entertainment we are headed towards. It is also happening because we are living in times when internet is available to everyone. If you see the trending charts, the first three videos always happen to be soft porn. So people have very less concentration now and the length of shows have reduced. Content has dumbed down to reach a wider audience,” he adds.

On the other hand, comedian Aditi Mittal says, “I do not care. She is awesome. I consider her my mentor. There are so few examples of women like her. Unfiltered, carefree, without worrying what the world has to say about this. It is rare to see a woman do this. How often do you see women making videos about falling off and laughing about it? Dhinchak Pooja is doing a real representation of that. So I really love her. Also calling it cringe-pop as if it is going to ruin the art form is not done. She is not making art or rapping, she is just being her goddamn self. So I would just want to say ‘I love you Dhinchak Pooja’.”

Explaining the phenomenon, clinical psychologist Pulkit Sharma says, “People create such content to create shock. This generates curiosity and people wonder, can things be that bad. So I think it is deliberately done to draw more people to such videos. Also, globally, there is a lot more violence and aggression in people due to cultural changes. That is another reason why such content becomes popular. People who are aggressive inside like seeing something aggressive outside.”

He believes this will change the way entertainment is perceived. “When people routinely see something bad, they develop an immunity towards that. They then need something even more severe to provoke that kind of curiosity, so such content will only lead to more bad content. Like people these days are filming their own suicide etc, so it will only get worse,” he adds.

But actor Sahil Verma, from TVF, doesn’t think people will be affected for the worse because of such content. “There are many reasons for such videos being viral. People are very busy these days and so they consume such content because it is short and quick. People generally watch all this while commuting.” While Sahil believes that such content is a mere filler for free time and a few casual laughs, one thing is certain — you can hate such content or love it, but you definitely cannot ignore it.